The resignation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ombudsman Robert Martin ends his long-running battle to preserve his office and its ability to independently investigate cases where the agency mishandled Superfund sites. His resignation came on the heels of actions taken by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to disband his office, including sending agents to confiscate his files and his computers, and to change the locks on his office.

The Bush administration, Exxon-Mobil and other energy companies successfully connived behind the scenes to oust climatologist Robert Watson from leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation's international scientific panel on climate change. Meanwhile, an extensive research survey published in March confirms that global warming is already affecting life on earth.

The US government says that a 22 year old British woman living in Florida is apparently dying of British mad cow disease. Over one hundred Brits have now died of the disease and the death toll is doubling every three years. The Associated Press quotes US officials assuring the public that "all evidence indicates her illness poses no threat to anyone else or the agriculture industry." However, the US government is failing to adequately address the British mad cow threat as well as the threat of other mad cow-type diseases in the US.